See no Hear no Speak no Slut

Teenage feminist discovers miracle cure for sluttishness! The cheap and easy way to get rid of every slut in town! The secrets the media don’t want you to know!

I’m not peddling a miracle tooth whitening remedy here, or some magical diet that allows you to look like a lamppost and eat like a black hole. I’m talking about a fabulous new way to rid the entire world of sluts and whores, fast!

For every woman you don’t call a slut, a slag, a whore, you’re one closer to a world entirely without sluts. And I’m not just talking about not calling regular women slags. I’m talking about everything without a Y chromosome. And a few things that do, just to be on the safe side.

What is a slut?

slut [slut] (plural sluts)

n

1. an offensive term for a woman thought to be sexually promiscuous

2. an offensive term for a woman who charges for engaging in sexual activities

3. an offensive term for a woman who is regarded as not concerned about conventional standards of domestic cleanliness (dated)

Now, frankly, I’m not ‘sexually promiscuous’. I currently don’t have a boyfriend, FWB, f-buddy… anything. I’m not ‘dating’ or whatever you crazy kids call it these days. Anyone who thinks I fit under the first category is probably a plughole short of a bath. If I’m not getting any, I sure as hell can’t be charging for it. And whilst it’s been a few weeks since I vacuumed under my furniture, compared to ‘conventional standards’ I’m, again, no slut. Why the hell did I get called (by a member of my own family, I might add) a slut?

4. an offensive term people use when they can’t think of anything more intelligent to say

5. An offensive term for someone who dresses in a way not approved by the speaker

6. an offensive term. Full stop.

Why do we slut shame?

Because we dislike a person (the ex of any boyfriend a nasty teenage girl has is invariably a slag)

Because we are jealous of a person (the girl who doesn’t weigh as much as a small rhino is, of course, a slut)

Because we disapprove of someone (the girl in the hijab? Oh yeah, she’s definitely a whore)

Because we are bored (probably the cause of most of the ‘the awkward moment when you shout slut and every girl in the room turns’ pages on Facebook)

Because we want to show we ‘get’ the joke (probably the reason most girls ‘like’ these pages)

Slut shaming is rampant in schools and online. Comedians fill gaps in their repertoire with it. Gossip magazines thrive off it. ‘Nice girls’ like Taylor Swift aren’t exempt from doing it either. If you’re not liked by the person doing the talking, you’re probably a slut. If you just happen to charge lots of people for sex in your dirty flat, that appears to be incidental.

Why we shouldn’t slutshame?

This should be obvious. But for thousands of people clicking ‘like’ on Facebook or gossiping about who wore what for prom (and what the probably did with their dates afterwards) it isn’t. They claim it’s harmless fun and that they don’t mean it at their nicest. At their nastiest, they tell you to shut up and suck some dick (because we’re sluts, of course). The girl being spoken about isn’t a girl anymore: she’s an object, something there for the purposes of ridicule, a SLUT. Sluts don’t have feelings, they just suck dick. And more. A lot. The catch-all derogatory term is apparently unable to cause offence or harm. Facebook and the like aren’t helping the matter, refusing to ban slut shaming, rape jokes and other offensive material because it is ‘opinion’.

See No, Hear No, Speak No SLUT!

Slut shaming is more then just annoying to sluts, feminists or whoever is complaining about it this week. It’s damaging to everyone who experiences it, even if they’re not the one being insulted. Contradicting ideas thrown around confuse young children (of both genders) who learn fast that anything that they don’t like can be called a slut. Yet at the same time girls are encouraged to dress and act in a sexual way. Is anyone else sensing a problem here? We can worry about the sexualisation and objectification of women in another article, but right now I’m asking people to quit calling each other sluts, and see how nice the world becomes then.

You know that love thing you do or don’t do? In the nicest possible way, whatever. We don’t care. If it’s not harming anyone, we literally don’t care.